


Behind Green Eyes

by Aezlo



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Abuse, Alien Biology, Angst, Body Horror, Character Study, Disability, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Medical Trauma, Pre-Canon, exploration of the hivemind, horde prime (background), life of a clone, nothing graphic but still beware
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:02:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24705775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aezlo/pseuds/Aezlo
Summary: He is already beginning to see himself as separate, as an individual. Did it begin in this moment right here, or before now? He’s always been different. Being sent to die on the front lines simply makes things plain, perhaps.A study of what life might have been like for Hordak before his exile, and what lead up to his eventual fall from grace.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 61





	Behind Green Eyes

He is not sure when he first realized, or knew, that he was different. He’s not even sure where or when he, himself, began. There are so many jumbled memories of decanting in the hivemind, filled with a cacophony of emotions: nostalgia, fear, horror, joy, resentment. It’s difficult to pull apart, but he doesn’t think he felt anything at all besides the overwhelming onslaught in the beginning. He’d felt the sudden awareness of The Teachings, all the tenets that Prime pumped into every clone, and then the pressing weight of the hivemind suffocating him with so many thoughts, feelings, associations. He’s pretty sure he collapsed underneath it, blinked bleary eyes up at the drone minders and then succumbed to unconsciousness.

The signs were there at the very beginning: this one’s weak, defective… different, and dangerously so.

He wasn’t sure how the other clones managed the hivemind. Now that everyone’s disconnected, he gets the feeling that many of them used it as if it were a separate limb, as if their bodies and brains were vestigial and all of their processes should rightfully be in the hivemind. Perhaps that was how Prime had intended it, and Hordak simply missed the memo, lost in between the cracks of everything else. So many of his clone brethren are missing huge swaths of knowledge, _basic_ knowledge that they must have had at some point, must have experienced themselves.

They can’t identify one another like they could with the hivemind, can’t lean in and touch mind to mind, breathe a quiet, _oh, hello, it’s you_ , but he still feels that he can recognize some as different, some that he knows personally. Not all of them have his scars to differentiate them, but there’s some that he _knows_ and he knows that at one point they were martially fierce, or strategically capable, and now it’s all gone. What happened? Why did they not think to keep some piece of themselves close to the heart, away from Prime or the hivemind? He knows there were others like himself, others who hid behind green eyes, passed knowing glances through the halls.

* * *

He does remember the first time he definitively realized that his suspicions were correct; that he, himself, was defective. They were plugged in and drilling again, running a simulation of an attempted takedown of the Velvet Glove. A rebellion troop had recently managed to sneak aboard and done some minor damage, so everyone was required to run these drills as a precaution. They stalked through the halls, a complete and terrifying unit, functioning as one, destroying the rebellion, and were, of course, triumphant! It was a bit of a given, considering that Prime knows all, and the only reason the rebellion got in was because he _let_ them in.

They were now merely picking up the pieces, ensuring that there were no stowaways or any long-term, problematic damage done to their systems. But he paused, and looked up at the light transmitter in the hangar, one that he had passed every day for the past few months in his duties maintaining the ships. The light was different somehow, a color that he had never seen before: a bright, virulent bluish color. No one else seemed to notice this anomaly, though. Perhaps he just hadn’t been paying attention, had forgotten it somehow. But he saw it literally every day, how could he miss a violet so brilliant?

The light just looks sort of cyan when he sneaks glances at it that evening during his work. He requests another attempt on the rebellion simulation just to test his hypothesis, and the light is still zealously purple in the simulation, much to his frustration.

A week later, after dismantling and replacing a defective lantern that hm, _somehow_ , became unhinged and broken, he learns that it’s an ultraviolet light based on the labelling of the replacement parts.

He’s colorblind.

His quiet horror at learning this does slip through into the hivemind and one of his fellows shows concern, offers comfort and the solace of not raising an alarm. But that’s a trap. Vulnerability always is.

He learns to lean into the various drones, security cameras, and other clones to make up for it; all of Prime’s robotics and clones’ function on the same network, so it’s not particularly hard to piece it all together. If he sometimes walks into a beam because he’s using a clone two feet to his right’s sight, he’s not the first one to do so. Clones sometimes get so wrapped up in the hivemind that they get lost and their bodies drift out of their control. Not something to make a habit of, but not a stand out anomaly. (Hide in plain sight).

It doesn’t help in the medical check-up, because he’s alone and the cameras don’t see here, or he doesn’t have the clearance to see the cameras here, but it keeps his eyes Prime green most of the time. He has to feign surprise at learning of his defect, but then he _is_ surprised to see the color of his eyes without the buzz of the hivemind blocking them. There’s something in the examination room that they give him that reduces Prime’s influence enough to show the wear and tear on the body, to allow for a real evaluation and so it is that he sees his eyes as they truly are for the first time in his life. They’re a brilliant red, a sharp contrast against his white skin.

He finds them absolutely _hideous_.

He stares out the windows, at the depths of space, blinking repetitively at the clone reflected there, desperately hoping to catch sight of it again. It’s different. _Defective_. He definitely doesn’t like it. In fact, he hates it. Disgusting. Loathsome.

An inability to differentiate UV light isn’t enough to toss him away though. It’s a problem, a lack, but he can make up for it. He _will_ make up for it. He will be worthy.

And at that point, he’d still believed he was capable of that.

* * *

He’s been on the field, suppressing an unruly populace with his brothers, and his chest _aches_. It has twinged before, in times of high stress or sometimes even when he is merely at ease. There’s no predicting it. He pushes it from his mind; his body’s whining is no concern of his. Perhaps it is merely another way that Prime’s love expresses itself... or perhaps it’s a purification of his form, and he should be glad of it.

He cleans off the detritus of battle, and absent-mindedly itches his chest when something stings. He hisses and looks down to find that he’s managed to dislodge a smudge of his scales on his chest. His heart rate spikes, and he nearly collapses in the woozy spell afterwards, clutching the featureless wall to stay upright and leaving dull talon marks there.

He must have injured his pectoral in battle, he quickly rationalizes. He doesn’t remember getting hit in the chest just there, but that’s the only logical explanation. He cleans the area on his chest thoroughly, peering at the darker, irritated scales around the edges. He’s worried. He doesn’t know entirely why, but that’s a bit of a constant for him. He’s done something wrong, but he can’t fathom what, or how, or why. He can fix it, but he has to understand it first.

Understanding is not important though. Prime’s light will guide him. Be at peace, little brother.

( _What’s wrong with him? Why? What is this? Why him? Why?)_

The medical drones prod the scales, and pull some of the irritated ones up in their after-battle clean up. One of them beeps, a low terrifying thing that signifies a _problem_. The emotionless triangle of its optical sensor seems to regard him like one would regard a pinned fly.

He's assigned medical treatments, daily, after that. He finishes his first work shift, then retires to the medical ward where he is hooked up to a tank with unnatural, searingly green liquid that they pipe into the ports on his arms. It will fix his defect, they tell him.

_(What is it this time? Just tell me. I just want to understand!)_

Just keep the appointments, take the correct dosage, and eventually he’ll be perfect again. They can’t fix his eyes, but they can fix this. In fact, they _will_ fix this. Having one of his hearts fail on the battlefield could be catastrophic. He will be better.

The treatments make him tired. Or perhaps the defect makes him tired? At some point, they stop gilding the transfusions with painkillers, and it _hurts_. He’d swear it was pure acid being pumped into his veins, but he doesn’t stop. He goes to every treatment… but he doesn’t get better.

In fact, he gets worse. One of his hearts goes into arrest in the middle of a basic work shift, thankfully not on enemy lines. When he claws his way to consciousness in a stabilizing pod afterwards, gasping awake, he is chastised for missing a week’s worth of treatments and he is so dizzy and disoriented that he just nods blindly at the attendant.

The treatments are a failure; one of his hearts is still weak, weak enough to fail him like this. But this can’t be true. This is Prime’s will. He will be better. He just needs to be better.

Not long after that, when the drone attempts to plug the damnable tubes into his mangled arms, there’s a horrifying pulling sensation in his forearm and up through his bicep. A resounding, metallic tinkling echoes through the medical lab as something round bounces and rolls on the ground. The metal of his port, and the cabling beneath it that he’s become disturbingly familiar with in the days of watching his arms waste away, lies there at his feet. He stares down at an integral piece of himself, feeling a deep well of nothing, as emotionally distant as the robot attendant next to him. The drone merely moves to plug the day’s treatment into his other arm after a moment’s hesitation and he is ~~glad~~.

He almost goes to pull the other port out that evening. He’s upset for some reason that he can’t seem to fathom anymore. He’s been purified again, and he’s shaky with the adrenaline from it, but there’s still something burning beneath his skin. It’s vaguely reminiscent of the treatments, except it prickles up his back, digs its claws into his neck and shoulders. The tang in his mouth reminds him of his first pre-battle jitters.

He will be pure; he just needs more treatments. It will be fine. He can be pure. He’s been purifying himself so _often_ these days. He thinks he asked for it this time, but he can’t quite remember. His mind is a white haze, and it’s easy to lean back and just let the hivemind subsume him. Prime is good, and all will be lavished in his light.

His other port falls out a week later. He is so angry that it’s blinding. He is defective and there is no more succor for a creature for him, but he _will prove himself **worthy**_. He can _be_ worthy. He is defective, and broken, but if he can just—Prime will see, just give him a chance, and he can prove it, just _please, please listen to me._

* * *

They are constantly losing the war with Heris. Even Hor— _he_ is aware of this, has paid attention with a low-grade dread, perhaps dimly aware that this would be his final destination. Their ~~magic~~ acids are too powerful, and their ~~gods~~ people have hidden too deep in the earth for Prime to reach. Prime will win though. Many will die on the pathway to victory, but there _will_ be a victory here. The lights on his scanner bleep their warning, stating that something is unstable in the area. It tells him to be wary of using portals or deep-space jumps here, but Prime had already ordered their jump into this quadrant and Prime knows all. The sensors of his ship must be jammed. ~~Makes sense to give him a defective ship, _too_.~~

He clicks through the warning and pushes his ship forward. He feels… tired, mostly. But clones do not tire, and clones do not go into cardiac arrest, and _clones do not have holes burnt through their forearms_. It’s an honor to serve Prime, even as a failed clone. It’s an honor, and Prime is kind and wise. So wise, in fact, because he, himself, was chosen to assure victory on Heris. Even if he has to rip it from the land with his own bloody claws, there will be a victory here. The hivemind is a dull buzz in the back of his mind, and he is already beginning to see himself as separate, as an individual.

Did it begin in this moment right here, or before now? He’s always been different. Being sent to die on the front lines simply makes things plain, perhaps.

His defective red eyes flick up to the window, to the reality of space outside his ship and not the scanner’s imperfect readings, and he gasps. A tear in reality opens directly in front of him, and he’s pulled in within seconds.

He’s going too fast, _he’s going too fast, and this is not Heris, this gravity isn’t right, he’s going to crash, it’s too late—_

**Author's Note:**

> Working on a longer, Entrapdak-focused piece and I've been struggling putting Hordak in order, so this happened. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated, even if I don't get back to you, I read them! Come yell at me on [tumblr](https://daezdlo.tumblr.com/), if you like.


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